Jim Harbaugh tried to recruit Pete Carroll’s son in 2006

I would watch an expanded telecast of this Sunday’s game between the 49ers and Seahawks that had cameras trained on Harbaugh and Carroll for the duration of the game. Both coaches are a Godsend for sports bloggers and .gif-makers, and when they coach against each other they have a weird synergistic effect that makes them do things like this:

The two have a history dating back to 2006 when Jim was the coach of the University of San Diego football team, and Carroll was coaching powerhouse USC, per Doug Farrar’s piece in SI today:

Harbaugh sought to recruit a quarterback from Peninsula High in Torrance, Calif., by the name of Nate Carroll. Yes, that’s Pete Carroll’s youngest of two sons, currently an offensive assistant for his dad’s team.

“He did recruit my son to go to the University of San Diego,” Carroll recalled Monday “I wasn’t there for the home visit though, Glena [Carroll’s wife] took that one.”

So Harbaugh tried to pull a Ned Flanders and adopt his neighbor’s son. It would have been great for Carroll to walk in on that recruiting visit, Take Home Chef-style and see Jim having tea pure caffeinated electrolytes in his living room, and Glena holding a stack of USD literature. Maybe that happened. Maybe that’s why the two coaches have been getting in each others faces going back to their days in the PAC-10.

For what it’s worth, Carroll’s son Nate would go on to be a backup QB at USC playing for his dad. He graduated with a degree in psychology, perhaps to help him better understand his fathers fringe beliefs in stupid things like 9/11 conspiracies and Matt Flynn.